


Justice Never Fails

by AMarguerite



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 03:07:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3192977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For simplyirenic, who asked for more Javert and Justice. Captain Javert and his dragon Justice are astonished by the strength of their mayor, who managed to deadlift a dragon off of old Fauchelevent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Justice Never Fails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyirenic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyirenic/gifts).



To be head of the prefecture of the small port town of Montreuil-sur-mer, Justice thought, was not so poor a promotion as the other Fleur-de-Nuits in the Toulon covert first implied.

  


True, there were few other dragons, and no other heavy-weights, but all the little courier weight dragons were good sorts, educated, faithful to Lien, inclined to take seriously the now increasingly rare positions of authority in which they found themselves. The Plein-Vites, the largest demographic of the town, all treated Justice with a flattering mixture of quiet respect and whispered awe. It took them weeks to work up the courage to ask, "Is it true, Madame, that Madame Lien once wrote in your praise?”

  


Unlike most dragons of her class, Justice had not fought at Waterloo. At first Justice had thought this unreasonably unfair, but then she saw, in Lien’s own hand: “Leave Toulon to Justice. She is  capable, and will keep all in good order.” Justice had been left in charge of the night defense of Toulon and it was this post that had saved her. Two thirds of the heavyweights of all France had died or been injured at Waterloo. Justice had observed this and drew from her situation the following axioms:

  


  1. Authority, no matter who wielded it, was to be respected. (Lien, after all, had been an unconventional wielder of authority, and had reshaped the world for the better.)

  2. Positions which granted one authority were serious matters, that might save oneself as well as all those under one’s command. (For Lien had saved her.)

  3. It was vital, above all, to preserve what was left of Lien’s careful ordering of France. (It would be easy for France to descend into the barbaric chaos of Russia. Justice still recalled the horrified tales one of her nestmates had brought back from the Russian campaign, of dragons kept half-starved in pits, of supposedly civilized dragons gone feral, scooping up peasants from the fields and consuming them whole).




  


Justice took her responsibilities seriously, and was proud of the tricolor rosette on the shoulder of her harness-- prouder still, of her captain, in his bicorn and spotless uniform. They might no longer be defending France from England, but, thought Justice, with a stir of pride that made her turn her milk-white eyes to the starry sky, they were defending France from itself.

  


There could be nothing nobler, nothing (though Justice thought this last almost guiltily, and curled her tail around her legs defensively) more in line with how Lien would have neatly ordered all the world, if that wretched Temeraire hadn’t torn Lien’s wings to shreds. Lien might be gone, but her teachings had been well learnt.

  


To that end, Justice made a point of carefully selecting and crafting stories of her time in Toulon with the edification of the courier weight dragons in mind. They loved to hear Justice’s stories, which shewed them a reality high above their most vaulting ambitions.

  


“Once,” said Justice, as the little courrier weighs crowded around her, their tasks at the docks at an end, “a convict escaped while at his work. He was a strong man, called Jean the Jack for his ability to lift anything. One of our Poux-de-Ciels had been hit by a deliberately loosed spar and she came tumbling to the ground with all the shot she carried. Jean the Jack raised off all the weight from her.”

  


“I should take such a man for my captain,” murmured one of the dragons, but Justice raised her head sharply, and the murmur subsided.

  


“You would not take such a man,” said Justice, coolly. “For do you know what he did next? He threw a rope around poor Sabine and tried to force her to fly with him. He was so strong he managed to get on her back and point her away from the coast of France, but I stopped them. I knocked Jean the Jack off Sabine’s back with one swipe, and my captain jumped down and clapped Jean the Jack in irons once again. And so the moral: a man may look to be doing you a service, but if he has showed disrespect for the public order once before, he will do so again, and at your expense.”

  


The little dragons murmured to themselves in a approving sort of way, and scattered at the sound of bootheels on the narrow cobblestone streets.

  


Justice turned her head and said, in a glad cry, “Javert! Are we to our rounds?”

  


“Indeed,” he replied and hooked himself on with a customary efficiency of movement.

  


“All lies well?” she asked.

  


“Yes.”

  


Justice launched herself into the air with a feeling of soaring gladness, which turned into real pride when she saw the flickering lights of Montreuil-sur-mer below. This was hers to defend, hers to protect and order. It was a good town, a town with promise. The factories produced some of the finest jet beads in the world. There were schools for boys and girls of all ages. There were many fine houses, and hospitals where one might put the indigent so that they were in the correct place and not wandering about outside, crowding the streets and confusing the traffic.

  


“You were speaking of Jean the Jack to the courrierweights,” said Javert, after a moment.

  


“Indeed,” replied Justice. “It is good to give them morally edifying stories. They are all very young.”

  


“Why Jean the Jack?”

  


Justice glanced over her shoulder. Javert was only a shadow on her back, details of his uniform winking in the passing light of the moon and stars. “It is a good story. Why do you ask?”

  


Javert was silent some thirty seconds and when he spoke, he said, “It would not be beyond the realm of possibility that Jean the Jack took on another identity when he left Toulon.”

  


“No,” said Justice. “Have you asked for his record?”

  


“Yes, and it corresponds with what I had thought. He was given parole, was reported to have robbed a bishop and then disappeared.”

  


Justice shook her head. “As expected. Men do not change.”

  


“No,” said Javert, “but they can hide what they truly are.”

  


Justice flew in low concentric circles over the town, starting from the harbor and then around over the fields that supplied the town with produce every market day. She had just reached the now grassy border of the town proper when she heard a crash and shouts and a horse’s whinny.

  


Javert’s hand was on the right side of her neck; Justice turned and flew down. Here the streets were too narrow for her to land, so she flew as low as she dared and Javert jumped off.

  


Justice hated it when Javert jumped. She always watched, with mounting anxiety as his beloved, familiar figure arced through the empty space of the sky, and could not be easy until she had either caught him, or seen his boots hit the ground.

  


She labored to hover in place until Javert called up through a speaking trumpet, “It is Fauchelevent, the carrier. He is trapped under his Poux-de-Ciel.”

  


There was a small crowd gathered at the end of the long, sloping road. Justice recognized the mayor by the symbols of his office. He was shouting for a jack.

  


“Has one been sent for?” asked Justice, darting in as close as she dared.

  


“Yes,” replied Javert.

  


The mayor was shouting something. Javert relayed it to Justice. “Monsieur Madeleine says that it will not arrive in time. Can you reach down to seize Carthame off her companion?” More shouts. Javert turned the chaos into order with the summary: “The baker says Carthame had a heart-attack trying to move the latest shipment of jet beads to the harbor. She is unconscious, and her companion is sinking in the mud.”

  


“You must instruct them all to move away,” said Justice, and she tried desperately to reach down between the narrow gap of buildings.  It was impossible to reach the street. The buildings were too tall for her to reach down her front leg, the street too narrow for her to land. The top of her claw only just brushed Carthame’s head, and every second she and her companion sunk further into the mud. Justice was thinking desperately, ‘Perhaps the buildings might bear my weight if I was to spread out on all of them,’ when the mayor began shouting again.

  


Javert said something in response, and then swung up the speaking trumpet. “Justice, fetch two of the Plein-Vites from the dock. They may be quicker to arrive than a jack.”

  


There were muffled cries. Justice calculated and realized, with a feeling of low spirits, that it would be too late. By the time she returned, Fauchlevent would be smothered in the mud, crushed by the weight of Carthame and her half ton of jet beads. It was a dreadful thing to lose a companion, thought Justice, preparing herself to wing away, even if one’s companion was an old carter, and not a real captain.

  


The mayor seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion. He had stopped shouting and was doing something odd with his clothes. He said something to Javert.

  


Javert did not immediately relay it to Justice. He stood with his speaking trumpet half upraised, as the mayor squatted down and dead-lifted Carthame above his head.

  


“That should not be possible,” Justice said, stupidly.

  


A host of men rushed over to help support Carthame, who was coming to with sluggish cries for her companion. The women of the town were dragging Fauchelevent out of the mud. One was running for a doctor.

  


Justice could not look away. The mayor was a good man, a retiring man, but middle-aged. He should not be able to lift a dragon and her half-ton of packages. No man should be able to, even a young one. Justice herself had seen it only once.

  


Still, there was work to be done. She shook her head and said, “Lift up Carthame, I will take her to the covert. The surgeon may look over her there.”

  


Justice could now easily seize Carthame and fly with her back to the covert.

  


Carthame was embarrassed, and rightly so, for overestimating her strength. “I-- it was-- where is my captain? It was so little a weight-- he was in the mud--”

  


“Hush,” said Justice, impatiently. “You must conserve your strength.”

  


Justice set down Carthame and roused the surgeon, and then laid down in her pavillion to think over all she had seen. She raised her head only when she heard the familiar, rapid click of bootheels on cobblestone.

  


“I wish you would not jump,” admonished Justice. “What if someday you jump too far and I am unable to catch you?”

  


Javert smiled in a way that suggested he did not believe Justice would ever fail him, which both pleased and worried Justice. He said, only, “Justice, the same thought must be occupying your mind as mine.”

  


“A man his age, to be as strong as he is,” said Justice, slowly. “A memory stirs.”

  


Javert nodded.

  


“A man... from years ago. A man who broke his parole.”

  


Javert said, “Shall I fetch you the file?”

  


“Indeed,” said Justice. The little orderly world given over to her care would be kept safe and orderly. She would not fail.

  


  



End file.
